The euphoria didn't last long.
The warm sensation of absorbing Runes—that intoxicating pleasure akin to alcohol—slowly faded, leaving Kaelen alone with his pain. The adrenaline receded, and reality slammed back into him.
His body was a disaster.
Kaelen slumped beside the carcass of the mutant hound he had just killed. His chest rose and fell with an unhealthy wheeze. Every breath felt sharp against the left side of his ribs—broken, or at least severely fractured. His legs were covered in scratches from the pile of bones he had climbed earlier.
He stared at his palms. The black blood of the monster began to dry, crusting over his pale skin.
In the corner of his vision, the red text still hovered. Silent. Waiting.
[Current Status]
Host: Kaelen
Class: Grave Walker (Lv. 1)
Health: 15/45 (Critical - Rib Fracture)
Unspent Runes: 5
"Five..." he whispered, his voice hoarse from dehydration.
He had just risked his life, killing a creature capable of tearing out a cow's throat, and the reward was merely the number "5".
Kaelen spat on the ground. His saliva was mixed with blood.
He tried to remember who he was. The name "Kaelen" felt right on his tongue, like an old shirt that was comfortable to wear again, but that was all he had. No faces of parents. No memories of home. No life purpose.
Only a sharp instinct whispering: Don't die.
His stomach growled loudly, twisting with pain. Hunger in a place like this was dangerous. There was no food here except rotting meat laced with magical toxins. If he ate the hound's flesh, he might feel full for a moment before his internal organs melted.
He had to move. Staying still meant becoming a sitting duck for whatever was chewing in the darkness above.
Kaelen forced himself to stand, using his rusty shovel as a crutch. He began to scavenge the corpses around him. He needed something better than this thin burlap cloth.
"Forgive me," he muttered softly as he turned over the body of a man missing half his face. There was no respect here, only pragmatism.
He removed a pair of leather boots from the corpse. The leather was stiff and the soles were thin, but it was better than being barefoot on a sea of sharp bones. He also found a leather waterskin still containing a little liquid. When he opened it, the smell of sour wine wafted out. Stale, but enough to wet his throat which felt like a desert.
As he gulped down the liquid, the System chimed.
[Item Consumed: Spoiled Wine]
[Stamina +2]
[Warning: Minor Poisoning Probability 5%]
Kaelen ignored the warning. Five percent risk of poisoning was better than one hundred percent death by dehydration.
He walked further, climbing the slippery mound of corpses toward the cliff wall. This pit of bodies was vast, like a crater from a meteor impact that had subsequently been turned into civilization's dumpster. The walls were made of wet clay, too steep to climb without equipment.
Amidst his efforts to find a path, his eyes caught something in his system interface. A small icon was blinking next to the Health indicator.
[Perform Emergency Recovery?]
[Cost: 5 Runes]
[Effect: Repair Minor Tissue Damage]
Kaelen stopped. He looked at the hound's corpse in the distance, then at the number 5 in his status.
Runes weren't just numbers to level up. Runes were biological currency.
Without hesitation, he focused his thoughts on the [YES] option.
The next second, Kaelen choked back a scream.
He dropped to the ground, clutching his chest. It didn't feel like healing. It felt as if an invisible hand had reached inside his chest, grabbed his fractured ribs, and forcibly crunched them back together.
Crack. Click.
The sound of shifting bone was clear in his ears.
The muscles around his chest spasmed wildly, fibers of flesh knitting back together at an unnatural speed. A burning heat spread from that point to all his nerves. Cold sweat poured down his back.
Recovery in this world was not a soothing magical light. It was brutal biological acceleration.
Ten seconds passed that felt like ten hours. The pain finally subsided, leaving behind a dull throbbing sensation. Kaelen gasped for air, lying atop a pile of stiff arms.
He touched his ribs. The sharp pain when he breathed was gone.
[Runes Consumed: 5]
[Unspent Runes: 0]
[Health: 22/45 (Recovering)]
"Bastard," Kaelen hissed, half-laughing, half-cursing. "Even healing feels like torture."
Now he understood the rules. This System did not pamper him. It only ensured he wasn't totally broken so he could keep killing.
He stood up again, wiping the sweat from his forehead. With a slightly more functional body, he continued his climb. His sharp eyes—aided by his oddly high Insight stat—scanned the area.
Amidst the gloom illuminated by pale mushrooms, he saw something out of place.
Far on the eastern cliff side, where the pile of corpses looked "fresher" (perhaps dumped a few days ago), there was a glimmer.
Not the glimmer of rotten gold like the monster's pus, but a clean silver shine. It came from a small iron coffer half-buried under the body of a fat priest.
Kaelen's instincts screamed caution, but his curiosity was stronger. Clean things shouldn't exist here.
He moved low, sneaking like a feral cat among the carcasses, avoiding the creaking of bones. As he got closer, he realized the coffer was wrapped in heavy chains secured by a padlock. And strangely, no monsters dared approach within a five-meter radius of the box.
The carcasses around the coffer were withered, as if their life and nutrients had been sucked dry by whatever was inside the iron box.
There was a low humming sound. Not the sound of a machine.
The sound of... singing?
Kaelen gripped his shovel tightly. The singing was very faint, yet the pitch made his molars ache.
[Insight Triggered]
[Detecting High-Concentration Holy Curse]
[Source: The Silver Coffer]
"Holy curse..." Kaelen repeated the oxymoronic words.
He knelt in front of the coffer. The padlock was old and rusty. With one strong strike using the edge of his shovel, he pried the lock until it snapped.
Kaelen held his breath, and opened the lid.
Soft white light radiated out, illuminating his face dirty with blood and mud. Inside, resting on a cushion of red silk that was still pristine, was a head.
The head of a woman.
Her skin was white as marble, without a single blemish. Her long black hair was neatly loose. But the most terrifying part was her eyes—her eyelids were sewn shut with pure gold thread. And her mouth... her lips twitched slightly, humming a tune that made the air around Kaelen turn cold.
The neck was cut cleanly; there was no blood, only flesh covered in a thin layer of gold.
Kaelen froze. The head was clearly severed. It should be dead. But his own chest trembled in response to the aura the woman emitted.
Suddenly, the singing stopped.
The woman's head tilted slightly inside the coffer, as if "staring" at Kaelen even though her eyes were locked shut.
System text appeared again, this time blinking in purple, not red.
[Unique Item Found]
[Name: Head of the Penitent Saint]
[Description: She saw truths that should not be seen, so they took her eyes. She shouted the lies of Gods, so they took her body.]
[Note: Do you seek the Truth, Grave Walker?]
Kaelen swallowed hard. "What are you?"
There was no voice answer, but a sharp pulse of pain stabbed his head, followed by an urgent sense of need.
This woman wasn't a corpse. She was an item. Or maybe... a weapon.
Kaelen reached out his trembling hand, his fingers touching the skin of the head's cheek which felt freezing cold. When their skin touched, flashes of images crossed his mind—fire, gallows, and the laughter of a king made of light.
Take me, a voice echoed directly inside his skull. Or die here as trash.
Kaelen closed the coffer for a moment, taking a deep breath. Then he opened it again, lifted the head out, and grabbed her long black hair.
With a horrifyingly pragmatic movement, he tied the head's hair to the cloth belt at his waist, letting the beautiful and terrifying face hang at his hip like a trophy.
"Fine," whispered Kaelen to the swaying head. "But if you try to bite me, I'll bury you again."
He stood up. Shovel in his right hand. Nun's head on his left hip.
The System chimed softly.
[New Quest: Escape the Pit]
[Reward: Class Evolution Shard]
His journey had only just begun, and he was already carrying the burden of a curse.